W/D tow setup

lawrosa wrote:

bigrailer19 wrote:

The trailer does drop my truck quite a bit, there's a noticeable sag in the rear of the TV, even when trailer is unloaded. I did not try and set the trailer up with the ball in the higher position because most people are saying to start with the ball about 1/2" below or above the coupler respectively. But to validate your idea of this I have also heard 1-3" higher than the coupler to account for the sag. This would mean that I can invert the shank and set the ball on the lowest position and be within that range. I just have not tried that.

Well try that. If the trailer and truck are not level and sagging at the hitch then you should be good with that height.

The ball currently is set to tilt back. By low at the ball I assume you mean from unloaded measurement compared to loaded (hooked up) measurement?

I mean the trailer hooked up to the truck with no WD activated. The ball of course is going to tilt back, but by how much is the question.

You can put up to 8 washers to tilt. This is all relevant to try to keep the bars even with the trailer frame. They should never arc higher. Either parralel or slightly down pointing.

At that point the WD bars should lift up the truck and distribute the weight. Got it. I think I'm focusing too much on the starting height? Is the end result not affected much by the starting height?


The end result regardless of how much weight you get off the rear is to get the front axle back to stock height and weight of the truck alone with no trailer connected.

Example if your fron axle is 3500 lbs truck alone and 3200 lbs with trailer connected, you want to restore the front truck axle to 3500 lbs without going over. The rear will take care of itself if you can do this properly.

I appreciate everyone's advice. Again I'm relatively new to using WD setups but I'm determined to figure everything out, I need to.

Please tell us what weight dist hitch you have so we can guide you further?

Perfect, thank you for outlining those topics.

I decided to take some steps on my own - as I should - and looked into the manufacturers recommendation. They say that the ball should be 1/16" higher for every 100lbs of tongue weight. Tongue weight is roughly 1000lbs so 10*1/16 is roughly 5/8" higher. Im a little over that but I'm starting to get more comfortable with the idea of this.

The WD hitch I have is: eazlift e-lite:
Hitch Type: MGTWR MVHC
Weight Distributing: 14,000 1,400
Weight Carrying: 6,000 600

I imagine the numbers you are looking for are the Weight Distributing numbers, correct? What does the weight carrying refer to? Its not mentioned by eaz lift anywhere other than on the hitch itself.